Tall, Dark and Disreputable

by Deb Marlowe

  He stared as Portia Tofton sauntered into the taproom as if it belonged to her. But this was not the shy, roundshouldered girl he recalled from his youth. From her head to her curvy figure and on to her dainty little toe, this was a woman to be reckoned with. Her stylish bonnet beautifully framed the look of cool amusement fixed on her face. Mateo’s jaw tightened even as she removed it, letting it swing by ribbons of shaded velvet.

  For so long he had imagined this confrontation. In his mind he had rehearsed his collected entrance into her presence, practised the biting words with which he would consign her to the devil. Now it would seem she had connived to rob him even of that satisfaction.

  His fists clenched. An air of assurance hung about her as she stepped into the candlelight. And why not? She thought she had him right where she wished. Heedless of propriety, unmindful of the great wrong she had done him or perhaps just without regard for his feelings, she stood there, all expectation, smiling up at him.

  That smile made him wild. Fury set his temples to pounding, but he would be damned before he would let her see it. ‘Peeve!’ he called. ‘It is you, is it not?’

  Her expression of triumph dimmed at the use of the old nickname. Relentless, he pressed his advantage. ‘But I see that much is the same with you, as well, my dear.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Still, after all these years, you are pushing yourself in where you do not belong.’

  If he had hit his mark, she hid it well with a toss of her head. ‘Come, let’s not be rude, Mateo,’ she cajoled.

  He nearly choked. ‘Rude? You conniving little jade! You would count yourself fortunate should I stop myself at merely rude!’

  ‘I don’t think the occasion warrants it.’ She cast a quick, curious gaze about them. ‘This is a place of…conviviality, is it not?’

  He had not thought it possible for his anger to grow hotter. But the roiling mass of resentment inside him ignited at her words—and his control slipped further as the flames licked higher. Incredulous, he gaped at her.

  He pushed away from the bar, away from her. Retreating back to the dying fire, he glared at her. ‘Conviviality,’ he scoffed. ‘Is that what you expected from me? Damn you English, and damn your deadly, dull-mannered ways,’ he said thickly. ‘And damn me if I will greet with equanimity the woman who has usurped my life’s work, and then—asif I am but her lackey—calls me to her side with a damned insulting peremptory summons!’

  Her eyes narrowed and she took a step towards him. ‘Mateo—’

  ‘Stop,’ he ordered. ‘By God, I am not one of your reserved English gentlemen! Come within an arm’s reach of me and I won’t trust myself.’ He turned away from her and gripped the stone mantel over the fire. ‘Never in my life have I struck a woman, but you, Portia Tofton, tempt me beyond reason.’

  Perhaps he had gone too far. At the bar, the innkeeper made a slight sound of protest. Etta watched with avid interest. But Portia barely reacted.

  ‘Ah, Mateo…’ she sighed ‘…I’d forgotten how incredibly dramatic you become when you are angry.’

  She could not keep the slight mockery from her tone—and that was all it took. The last of his restraint tore away. Everything this infuriating chit did and said only fuelled the blowing gale of his anger.

  ‘Dramatic?’ he ground out. ‘I am betrayed. I am robbed of the future that I have laboured all my life for. I am a laughingstock where once I was a respected businessman. And I am furious. What I am not is dramatic.’He whirled around and advanced on her with menace alive in his step. His voice, gone rough and threatening, reinforced the truth in her words and the lie in his. But Mateo was beyond caring. Hell and damnation, but she pushed a man too far! And she was—at last!—a bit frightened. God help him, but he wished to frighten her.

  She stood her ground, though her eyes widened, and her fingers crushed the velvet of her ribbons. ‘I believe you have let the Cardea temper and your own imagination run away with you,’ she said. ‘I sent an urgent request for you to come and discuss this situation. There is a vast distance between urgent and peremptory.’

  ‘Ah, it is my mistake,’ Mateo growled. ‘Yes, I am sure your urgent need of a long and thorough gloat required my presence. Well, I can assure you, I feel your triumph keenly enough without such a humiliation.’

  ‘But I—’

  He swung his arm in a sharp gesture and cut her off. He was close enough now to clearly see the puzzlement in her great brown eyes. Good, then. There was one question that had hung between them for years. He would answer it one last time and put an end to this entire farce. ‘We’ve both trod this ground before, have we not? It was not enough that you and our fathers sought to manoeuvre me into marriage? But I won that battle—so now you must find a new way to steal my future. Once again you have played a game without informing me I was a participant—and just as before you will find that I refuse to act as the prize.’

  She gaped up at him. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Do not play the innocent with me, Portia, not after you have conspired to steal all that I value,’he growled. ‘Perhaps it is not so inappropriate for you to be here tonight, after all. It is a fitting setting for you to learn that I will not be bought like a whore, no matter the bait that you dangle in front of me.’

  Portia gasped. Behind him, Etta echoed her. The innkeeper dropped his cloth and took a step towards the corner of the bar. ‘That’s enough, now.’ He cast a conciliatory eye in Portia’s direction as he came around and approached them. ‘I don’t claim to know what there is between the two of you, but the gentleman was right the first time, Mrs Tofton. You shouldn’t be here, let alone at this hour. If word got out, your credit would suffer, and so would mine.’

  All of Portia’s colour had faded at Mateo’s last heated words. As the innkeeper’s objection penetrated, her flush returned with a vengeance. Her chest heaved as an angry red wave crept upwards from beneath the standing collar of her pelisse. ‘I’m sorry for it, sir, but surely the damage is done.’She cast a neutral glance at Etta and then regarded Mateo with the sort of loathing his crews reserved for an empty rum casket. ‘And well worth it, I must say, for suddenly I find several things have become clear.’

  She looked away and this time it was she who took a step back. ‘I never thought—I can scarcely believe—’ She dropped her head, placed her hands on her hips and actually paced back and forth a few steps, seemingly lost in thought. Some of Mateo’s ire began to fade as he took in her air of bewilderment and the forgotten bonnet swinging against her knee.

  She stopped suddenly, caught at the apex of her trajectory. Her chin lifted and at last he caught a glimpse of answering anger in her gaze—but there was hurt there too, and something bleak and sad.

  ‘I wished you to come because I needed your help.’ She spoke low. ‘I thought it possible that you might have some insight into why your father and mine would have acted so contrary to expectation and good sense. I know nothing of why your father made the choices he did. I’m sorry he died, but I was as shocked as you were to hear the contents of his will.’ She paused. ‘My father is dead, too, Mateo. And my husband, as well. Together they have left me in a dilemma as terrible as yours.’

  Her words doused the burn of fury inside of him, but she was not done yet. At her side, her fists clenched. ‘I came here tonight to chide you, for I was unable to fathom why I had to ask you to come to sort this mess out in the first place, and why you would dally so long once you set out, in the second. But now I see.’

  He watched her pull her bonnet on with shaking fingers. ‘I had no notion that your opinion of me had sunk so low, but truly, it matters naught. I ask you, please, to come to Stenbrooke tomorrow.’ She tied the strings with short, jerky movements. ‘You are both right. This is neither the time nor the place. But if you will come tomorrow, we will discuss this business.’ She swept the room with a glare that included all three of them. ‘Business, and nothing else. I trust I make myself clear?’ With an all-encompassing nod, she turned on her
heel and strode out of the taproom and into the night.

  The towering heat of his anger had faded to mere embers. She had cut the legs out from under him. Still, Mateo managed an involuntary step after her. The tavern owner deliberately put himself in his path. ‘Mayhap, sir, you don’t have all the facts you need,’ he said gently.

  ‘Aye, I fear you’re right in that.’Mateo stepped back, scrubbed a hand from brow to jaw, and cocked an enquiring eye to the man. ‘She tells the truth, I think?’

  The innkeeper shrugged. ‘They do say as she’s one for straight dealing, hereabouts.’

  ‘I would say it is either truth she’s given us,’ Mateo paused, ‘or a beautiful performance.’ He sighed. ‘I feel like the Mariner—discovering the world has shifted and the sun is rising in the west.’

  ‘A woman’ll do that to a man, eh?’

  ‘I fear so.’ Mateo glanced back at Etta. ‘Look at me. Knocked off my pillar of righteous anger in the space of a few minutes—and damned if I’m not exhausted from the fall.’ He reached beyond the man to grasp his ale and drained it in one long haul. ‘I am for bed,’ he declared. ‘It seems I’ve a mess to straighten in the morning.’

  The innkeeper nodded his approval. ‘I’ll see that you are not disturbed.’

  Mateo shook his head. ‘It’s far too late for that, my friend, but I thank you just the same.’

  Chapter Two

  A glorious morning dawned the next day, spilling sunlight into the breakfast room at Stenbrooke. A breeze drifted, rewarding early risers with the taste of heavy dew and the fresh scent of green and growing things. Never had Portia felt more out of harmony with the start of a beautiful day.

  For once immune to the call of her gardens, she stood at the window while her breakfast grew cold behind her and the light limned the fair hairs on her arm with gold. The parchment in her hands glowed nearly transparent, grown worn with time and tears and frequent handling. And though she hid the letter when her elderly butler came in to shake his head over her untouched plate, he would have been hard pressed to read the faded ink in any case. Portia, of course, had no need to read it; its message had long ago been etched into the darkest corner of her heart.

  Philadelphia, 11 July 1812

  Your curst brother has arrived safely, Peeve— it began without preamble—bringing with him details of this preposterous scheme our fathers have hatched between them. I cannot believe they have risked him at such a time of conflict between our two countries, and I am inclined to agree with Freddy when he wonders what put such a maggoty idea as marriage in their brains. I know we spent a good deal of time in company together when last I was at Hemp shaw, but surely they must realise that was years ago and we were only friends, besides?

  In fact, I feel that I owe you a most profound apology—for this must be my father’s doing. He is grasping at straws because I mean to sign a letter-of-marque bond. It’s a surety he’d rather see me occupied with a wife and marriage than a privateer’s cruise. I am deeply sorry to have caught you up in such a muddle but what must we do to break free?

  Stand firm, I suppose, is the only answer. I pledge to do my part here—for at last I have got my own ship and she is the fastest schooner, with the sweetest lay in the water that you’ve ever seen. I mean to make my fortune with her, Peeve, though I promise not to target any ship that carries your brother back to you. In any case, I’m sure you’ve your own plans you don’t wish me to disrupt. Stand fast, dear girl, as I mean to, and there is little they can do to force us otherwise.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Portia started as the door opened again behind her. Over her shoulder she watched as Dorinda Tofton, her cousin by marriage and companion, entered on the heels of the butler.

  ‘Vickers tells me that you are neglecting your breakfast again, Portia,’Dorinda chided. ‘He also suspects that you are mooning over a letter. Has that woman sent another of her hateful missives? I thought we’d seen an end to this nonsense! I won’t have you harassed—’

  ‘No, Dorrie,’ Portia interjected before her companion could get herself too wound up. ‘I was just going through some old correspondence.’

  ‘Oh. Well. You’re all right, then?’

  Portia hesitated. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good.’ She shot a brief glance out of the window before focusing on the food spread out on the sideboard. ‘Will you please come and have some breakfast then, dear? I can see that we are in for a beautiful day, but you know how I feel about you disappearing into the gardens without so much as a piece of toast in you.’

  For a long moment, Portia did not answer. The letter she held was the last communication she’d had with Mateo Cardea until last night—and even after so many years it still held the echo of her youthful shock and dismay. With gentle fingers she folded it up and tucked it into her bodice. Right over her heart she placed it—where she would wear it as a reminder and a shield.

  ‘Portia?’ Dorinda paused in the process of making her own selections and eyed her curiously.

  She turned. ‘Yes, of course. I was just sitting down to finish.’

  Dorinda took a seat and tucked into her coddled eggs with relish. ‘What do you mean to tackle today, dear? The damaged bridge on the Cascade Walk?’ She frowned. ‘Or did I hear you say that the dahlias were in need of separating?’

  Portia smiled. Only politeness led Dorrie to ask—she neither shared nor understood her charge’s passion for landscaping. ‘Actually, I mean to stay in this morning.’

  Dorinda brightened noticeably. ‘A wise choice. The sun is quite brilliant today. You know how harmful it can be to one’s complexion.’ Dorrie’s own milky countenance was her pride and joy—and Portia’s significantly browner one counted as a chief worry. She set down her fork and took up her teacup. ‘Perhaps,’ she began, her word choice seeming as delicate and deliberate as the stroke of her finger over the fine china, ‘we might begin to pack some of our winter things? We might even consider starting on the books in the library.’

  Portia set down her toast.

  ‘It’s only sensible to be prepared.’ Dorinda sounded as if she were coaxing a reluctant child. Her voice lowered. ‘We’re running out of time, dear.’

  Portia was a woman grown. She’d been married—and then widowed in spectacular fashion. She’d run this estate entirely on her own for years now. Never had she shown herself to be fragile or weak, and especially not since the day she’d first received the letter tucked into her bodice. Bad enough that her father and brothers had always treated her like a nursling—when Dorrie followed their example, it made Portia long to act like one.

  But this was not the time for such indulgences. Instead of treating Dorinda to a screaming fit, she caught her gaze and held it. ‘There is no need to pack, as I’ve told you repeatedly. We are going nowhere. We will proceed exactly as planned.’ She leaned forwards. ‘Even better, we begin today. Had you not heard? Mateo Cardea has arrived in the village. I expect he will call on us today.’

  ‘He’s here at last?’ Dorinda nearly dropped her teacup. ‘Oh, but will he co-operate?’ she fretted. ‘I know you recall him fondly, but there is this business with his…well, his business!’ She reached over and laid her warm hand over Portia’s. ‘I want you to be prepared. I know you have not wished to consider it, but when you put this admittedly odd circumstance together with what you’ve told me about the marriage scheme your fathers tried to force on both of you…It’s just that it’s entirely within the realm of understanding…’ She exhaled in exasperation. ‘Portia, he’s likely to formulate ideas. And none of them are likely to paint you in a favourable light.’

  Portia felt the heat rising in her face. Dorrie had raised this concern before, and she had refused to believe such a thing of Mateo. Unfortunately, Mateo had been all too willing to believe such a thing of her. Bitterness churned in her belly. So much for the friendship she had valued so highly and for so long.

  But admitting it also meant confessing her entirely improper
, late-night visit to the Eagle, and that was a pot that Portia had no intention of stirring. ‘If he is so disobliging as to think so of an old and dear friend,’she said with heat, ‘then he is not the man I thought him to be.’ She drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. ‘And I will just have to set him straight.’

  ‘Oh, if only we’d bought that French muslin when we had the chance! The sage would have been so flattering on you, dear.’

  Portia frowned. ‘I begin to worry that you are the one with ideas, Dorrie. And if that is the case, then you can just rid yourself of them straight away.’

  ‘Well, forgive me, but he’s a man, is he not? And if you mean to ask for a man’s help, then you’ve got to use every weapon in your arsenal—and give him every reason to agree.’

  Portia rolled her eyes at the familiar refrain, but Dorinda had not even paused to take a breath. ‘I confess, I’m so nervous about meeting him! I know you count him an old friend, but in all of these years there’s been not so much as a letter between you. I—’

  She stopped as Portia slapped both hands on the table and stood.

  ‘Please, Dorrie! Stop or you’ll have me tied in knots along with you.’ She straightened. ‘I have what Mateo wants. He can help me get what I want. It will be as simple as that.’ She ignored her companion’s huff of disagreement and stepped away from the table. ‘I’ll be in the library, settling the accounts, should you need me.’

  It took only minutes at her books for Portia to regret her decision. A bundle of frayed nerves, she fidgeted constantly in her chair. She could scarcely believe that Mateo had laid the blame for his troubles at her door. They had always been at ease in each other’s company, accepting of the other’s foibles, keepers of the other’s secrets. It should never have been so easy for him to believe the worst of her.

  She put down her quill and rested her head in her hands. He’d casually crushed her fledgling feelings so long ago. It should come as no surprise that he did it again, and so easily. A conniving jade, he’d called her! Even her husband’s betrayals had not cut so deep into the heart of her—perhaps because they had been expected.